Christ and Jeanne Claude's The Gates resembles a famous sight-seeing location in Japan called Fushimi Inari-Taisha. It locates on Mt. Inari and there are nearly 10,000 Torii gates in the mountain.
Above: Fushimi Inari-Taisha's torii gates
Below: Christ and Jeanne Claude's The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005
I could not confirm a direct relationship between The Gates and Fushimi Inari-Taisha's torii gates but it does not surprise me if Christ and Jeanne Claude had been inspired by them since these torii gates are as visually strong as Christ and Jeanne Claude's works. Good news is that the shrine still exists today while The Gates has been taken down.
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This is beautiful! I'm sure we can assume that this was an inspiration to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. It's funny how they never mentioned it. I guess appropriation in art is more common than we think.
ReplyDeleteI always look forward to your post, Yu! As Manseen stated, "appropriation" is used more often in art than we know. I am going to research what the writing on the post mean.
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